Of the Midnight Sun
by midnight-blue
Summary: Goren and Eames casefile. How do you see in the dark?
1. Chapter 1

title: of the midnight sun

author: midnightblue

rating: pg-13 to R

category: angst/drama

disclaimer: The characters aren't mine, I promise. Though I'd love to kidnap them.

summary: Goren and Eames casefile. How do you see in the dark?

_"And your saintlike face and your ghostlike soul..."_

**i. The Confluence**

Once, when he was a child, he wandered off alone just to see if he could make it. But the first time he tripped over a bump in the road, picking at the gravel littering the scrape on his knee, he started to wonder if it was the shorter journey, just to go home.

And it was quiet, that night, with just the leftover warmth of early evening's sun giving way to a premature autumn chill. Crickets chirped and randomly harmonized and in between the stings ("_his mom's such a freak_") and memories ("_don't you hear the voices, too, Bobby?_"), he tried to catch enough fireflies to see his way back home in the encroaching darkness.

He's always certain that it took him ten minutes to get lost and he didn't make it home for another three hours, sidestreets playing games with the virgin memory of a child. So that's where his story began: wandering lonely on empty streets that were all too easy to find; searching for light enough to ignite signs amidst the dark.

When he finally made it home that night, there were leaves in his hair and dirt stains on his blue-and-grey striped shirt. He was marked by things he didn't understand, and the fireflies cradled in his hand had died along the way.

His mother slept on the couch, her back to him. He stopped beside her, hoping she would sense his presence and awaken, hug him, wash his face, chide him with a smile, and tuck him in with a nightlight. But he was seven years old then and he was meant for places others dare not go. The kitchen light didn't come on when he flipped the switch.

It started; he was meant for darkness.

One firefly fluttered its wings a final time as he went to wash it from his hands. Briefly, he started at the idea that it might still be alive. But then it ceased its movement and the fire blew out and that's when he began to search--

for illumination.

To see what the dark looked like.

* * *

It goes like this, for her, because she doesn't believe in endings. 

Some would blanch at this, and they have, because how can she do this and not see the finality in all the lives she's spoken for, and, subsequently, derailed (in the name of justice)? But those aren't endings, they're just transitions.

She never says that out loud, because it's maudlin and simplistic and it sounds like a euphemism, which is just the easy way out. So when they ask, she never answers. But she knows, she knows. Her entire life is a passage from memory to memory, like skipping on stones to cross an unending river.

Once, she was Alexandra; thirteen and perky. Then her dad was a dirty cop and she was Alex, because she had to change, she had to be what he had been, but beyond, and beyond. The makeup-laced slumber parties faded away, replaced with reruns of _Dragnet_ and sitting beside her father's left knee (the easiest way to block out the sun). Alex would recite the opening mantra by heart and sometimes she'd call him 'Joe Friday' and on his last cigar once, before she went to bed (but not in front of her mother), she said, "Being a policeman is an endless, glamourless, thankless job that's gotta be done. I know it, too, and I'm damn glad to be one of them."

There was a tear in his eye when she left the room and he'd never been able to properly return the favor. But she knew, always knew, and it was his long silences and the way his bottom lip would quiver after he took a sip of Scotch, that prompted her to do it.

Then she was seventeen and prom queen, a strange transition, but even then, she could play the part. When she tells the story to people, years later, they form romantic visions of a glamorous Alex Eames in her pink lace dress, with her gallant date, arriving in a limo and finishing out the rest of her high school years in esteemed popularity. If they bothered to ask, they'd know that it never turned out that way, because a week after prom, her kid brother was in the living room with a ripped shirt and a broken nose and his tears were stinging the cuts that littered his face. So when she stepped further into the room and ran a hand quickly through his brown curls, she felt a stirring within her. It would be the first time, but never the last. It was a beginning, because she would do this for the rest of her life; Alex Eames, avenger of broken noses. And cuts. And everything wrong in the world that never should be. She finished out her last year of high school in relative solitude. But she came home one night and there was her brother, Patrick, in the chair at her desk. They hadn't spoken since she'd gone after his attackers and she'd assumed he was angry and embarrassed at her behavior. She was partially right. But then he laid an album on her bed and squeezed her to him so quickly, she couldn't reciprocate the hug. In his wake were strains of "Like a Rolling Stone" and her, smiling in the dark.

There was early adulthood, and alcohol and cigarettes, after the sex that meant the least. The men were young and she grew old, in spite of them. Some would whisper sweet promises against her skin and when she was all alone the next morning, she traced the outline of their lips where the sun ignited shadows.

The first time she believed in love, she slipped a gold band on her finger and made a promise and thought of which parent her children would take after more. But then, he was a cop, and when you're a cop, she knew, you sign an invisible contract with Death. Like most contracts, there's often an awful truth in the fine print. The day he died, she came home to an empty house and looked through her closet, uncertain; they were the clothes of a different woman, a married woman. It was his highlighted TV Guide that did her in.

When Josh died, it wasn't an ending, it was a 'moving on' and a 'moving beyond', because it doesn't hurt as much when the stark tan line, where her ring had once been, starts to disappear.

Once, she was so close to another living being that she could pat her stomach and feel it move and it was the most important thing she'd ever done. It couldn't be hers, though, because, she was made for carrying life and continuing it, but never holding it long enough to say she knew what purely unselfish love was. Then again, she didn't believe in purely unselfish love.

All love was, in its rawest form, about who you were, with a person. And who you couldn't be, without them.

Somewhere, in all of this, she met Bobby Goren, with his _can you help me, I'm a little lost_ eyes and his _you're going to love me_ smile. He moved across moments in time like he'd been given the code to all of humanity's secrets. It was a blessing, and a burden, and it wore him like a shadow.

There is a truth within.

She needs him, to forget ghosts.

* * *

**ii. On Empty Rings Around the Sun**

A sigh is customary, because these deaths are always painfully premature. This case, however, warrants a moan and resigned swipe at the eyes from Eames. It pulls a hand-over-the-mouth gesture from Goren.

Formaldeyhyde and death fight for olfactory dominance.

"She wasn't even on the job."

"She was...with someone."

Eames looks closer. Lip gloss. Then, another smell. Perfume.

"Someone special," she adds. "And possibly homicidal. Out of his mind, too, to murder a cop."

A cop. Inwardly, they both wince.

Bobby runs his gloved pointer finger through a few strands of hair, then tilts her head gently to look at the fatal wound at the base of her neck. Small, but deadly. It would've killed her instantly, but she wasn't taken by surprise. A quick glance at the hair again. Short and dirty blonde. _Like Eames_. He pulls back, to gaze at her face. Angular jaw, creamy skin, sturdy mouth, belying a warmth underneath (he suspects). _Like Eames_. His left hand comes to rest on the gurney. Petite, strong arms, seasoned and firm.

The room is silent, for only a moment, and then, _she_ is Eames. The still, pale corpse. His right hand grips the gurney and he draws a prounounced breath.

"No defensive wounds," she breaks the horrifying silence. Bobby is still silent, and she finds herself in a rare position, taking the lead. It's both refreshing and unnerving. Leaning forward, she gets a closer whiff of the perfume. A few things start to click, though she questions their pertinence.

"She's like me."

Bobby's head shoots up. His mind is having fun, playing cruel tricks.

"Didn't get out much," she says with a sad smile. "Really cheap perfume; the only dress she owned was the one she died in."

He holds her gaze a minute longer than usual and feels confident in speaking once again.

"She was...relaxed, content. Her hair--she showered right before their date, but she was barefoot; they spent the night in. H-he cooked, they watched a movie, he rubbed some lotion on her shoulders, her neck..."

"The same neck he mutilated."

Bobby straightened and snapped his gloves off.

"We need to speak with her coworkers, her...partner."

Within him, an uneasy feeling starts to manifest.

* * *

The first thing he notices in her desk is a Bob Dylan CD. The jacket is fringed at the left corner and the CD itself is missing, but he smiles, in spite of himself. 

"Good taste," remarks Eames. He raises a questioning eyebrow in her direction.

"I do listen to music," she says by way of explanation, and he drops the CD into an evidence bag, doubting it will provide any clues about the murder, or her murderer. But at least they have a clearer profile of her. And the more you know, the more human they become; the less they remain stiff bodies void of circulating blood and life-giving breath. The quicker they come alive again, for a short time.

He seems Eames pause in looking through Detective Fischer's files as she stands up to greet the stranger standing before them in a rumpled suit and sloppily looped tie. Even his hair is coming away from his scalp in pointy slants of wayward misdirection.

"I'm Detective Eames, this is Detective Goren."

Bobby nods to the man in acknowledgement, who continues to stand. He sticks his left hand in his pocket and begins to play with some loose change.

"Elyer. Paul Elyer. I'm--I was," around the catch of a breath, "Angie's partner."

_Angie?_ Bobby mouths to Eames, and she shrugs.

"Detective Elyer, can you tell us about your recent cases?"

He sighs and tugs on his tie, ruining its alignment even further. This time, he sits in a chair with wheels and runs his left hand back and forth along the armrest.

"We'd just been undercover, less than a week ago. Uh, I mean, we'd just finished it. We suspected this organization of perpetrating a scam upon its clients and we--" he chuckles for a moment, remembering. "We had to go undercover--we were enmeshed for about two weeks. We were this dorky couple, with conspiracy theories and wild beliefs. It was fun, it was--"

His hand stills and falls into his lap, he sinks into the chair until his legs are sprawling in front of him and his neck is cradled upon stiff plastic. Silence finishes his thought.

Bobby waits a breath before questioning. "What was the organization?"

Elyer prolongs his stasis a moment longer before raising up and meeting Bobby's eyes.

"A group for people who believe they've been kidnapped by UFOs, or witnessed some sort of paranormal, or--or extraterrestrial occurrence. Like, The X-Files, you know? I was Mulder, she was Scully...well, reversed, actually. I'm the skeptic. She played the part very well. She always did, she was the best."

He shoots up from the chair now, pulling his tie fully out and tossing it on his desk, in front of Alex.

"You say you just left; no one was suspicious?"

"Well, we planned that. Provided we couldn't find anything substantial, we set it up so we were just in town, visiting, thinking of moving here, the usual. Those people will believe anything, really, it wasn't hard."

"Can you give us the name and contact information?"

"Sure, but--"

"We'll circumvent the real reason for questioning, for now, we just need to know what we're dealing with."

He writes the information hastily on a notecard, hands it to Alex, and walks to the coffee machine.

"I think that's all we'll get from him for now. Plus, he could use a pause," she says as they gather up their stuff.

"Angie?"

"They seem to have had a very friendly partnership."

She smirks as she says it, opening the door of the SUV and quickly climbing in, away from the cold.

He wants to say something, to reassure the doubt hiding behind her wit. Just because he doesn't use her first name doesn't mean--

"Eames."

"Hmm?" as she turns the key in the ignition.

"You _are_ Alex...to me...I just--"

_Care too much to use it, to open the door and cross the threshold and lay bare emotions which, until now, have been safely dormant and unobtrusive. If I say the name, it will mean everything it shouldn't, it can't._

"Bobby. Mulder and Scully didn't use first names, either," with a wink.

* * *

Files litter his desk, seeming to grow with each second, and yellow post-its with reminders and theories lay atop them, some even spreading across to Eames's desk, and burying the forever jovial smile plastered across their joint pencil holder, the Santa mug. He starts to bite at the pencil currently between his teeth and when an awful taste takes hold of his tongue, he pulls it away, wondering when this had become a nervous habit. Old bitemarks trail from the eraser up. Yesterday--he'd started yesterday. Suddenly, minute details are fleeing from his mind, making his jumbled thoughts as scattered as the post-its, and as tangible as the glue that holds them to surfaces. 

His eyes rest upon one cradling the small space between the edges of their desks. "Trivia. 9 p.m. Murphy's."

Eames continues writing as she inches her eyes up to meet his question.

"Sean--those games he does at the bar. He invited me along tonight, for some reason. Must be desperate. Single men," she finishes with a shrug.

"Your little brother..."

"Remember that case--"

Bobby nods his head and a knowing look paints her face. Of course he does.

"You should come sometime, you'd probably show him up. Now _that_, I would like to see. He needs a little straight pin to the ego once in a while."

Bobby smiles. "Maybe. But this case is going to eat up all of our spare time."

"That's why I'm only stopping by to say hello and grab a quick drink. I promised him after this case was over that I'd really watch."

"Why don't you try it?"

She laughs and raises an eyebrow.

"Beauty and brains; in a partnership, each person has one or the other. In our case--"

"That's not true, you can have both."

"It might be true for me, but Bobby, you weren't made for lace."

Now _there's_ an undercover job, he thinks, on the tip of a laugh. A semi-seriousness washes over him as he wonders whether Eames really believes that about herself. He hopes it isn't true, but there's little room to banter any longer, as crime scene photos revive themselves before him.

"Detective Fischer had just completed an undercover assignment with her partner," he begins.

"We'll know more when we talk to these people."

"Someone must've--must've suspected them. Depending on how paranoid some of these people are..."

"We need to interview her neighbor across the hall. He wasn't there when we were."

"What's his name?"

"Patrick McGann. Unemployed. The only thing the super could tell me was that he paints a lot and listens to folk music," she says the last part with raised interest.

"Bob Dylan," Bobby supplies as he holds up the CD.

* * *

"Highway 61...i-it's famous, it evokes..." 

The brown curls are in disarray and when she turns, just a bit, she thinks he could be an adolescent, embellishing the burgeoning, testosterone-driven escapades of youth.

Then, "good...and evil..."

A self-proclaimed listener, her mind now wanders, until she's hearing merely fragments. Today, _today_, she likes to watch.

"Eames, it's beautiful, you know?"

And she does, but she pretends not to. She thinks she'd rather hear him go on describing it this way, because when he thinks she's unfamiliar with something, his explanations somehow grow and come alive until they're almost tangible. Not stories, anymore, but meanings.

His abrupt silence discomfits her. It's not intentional, rather, he seems suddenly distracted by something. In his lap, an evidence bag catches some light and dances it across the dashboard. He's reading the lyrics from the CD booklet they found in Detective Fischer's desk. In the margin, there were scribbled lines from other poets. Eliot and Yeats and Nick Drake (a singer-poet). And Bob Dylan.

She likes the parallel. One genius (who knows, who chases flickers of humanity to fill the all-too frequent voids where there is none) cradling the manipulated beauty (the words, always) of geniuses long behind him.

"Everybody is making love or else expecting rain," because it's always been one of her favorites, and when she says it, she is ready. For it all.

He knows.

It's why they've always worked.

TBC...


	2. Chapter 2

**NOTE**: The reviews are so appreciated, thank you! 

_"And we are leaving  
And we won't be back for years..."_

_

* * *

_

**iii. Silver Spaceships Lying in the Yellow Haze of the Sun**

Cigarette smoke makes dirty love with her midnight blue blazer, and she absently tucks on the hood at her neck as alcohol mumbles laughter.

"I should tell you something about my brother."

Bobby raises an eyebrow as they slow their approach to his table.

"He's the--he's the youngest, he's a computer nerd, he listens to all the best music..." Bobby trails off with details he's remembered her mentioning.

"He reads a lot and watches--look, he's like those people in that group. I mean, he doesn't believe he was kidnapped by aliens, but he thinks he saw one on this camping trip and he has theories and--"

Bobby stops, sensing her uncomfortableness.

"He's not crazy, and he doesn't talk about it unless you ask him. He's like Mulder, I guess...Oh God, how many times have I mentioned The X-Files today?" She rubs at her eyebrow.

"Eames, a lot of people believe in aliens, it's not--"

"But he writes essays about it and..."

She starts to move forward, but Bobby's hand on her shoulder stops her.

"Eames, he's not crazy," he says with conviction, and she smiles.

"We've always been close," she says of her brother, tilting her head towards the melted caramel curls flopping loftily in the air to a bass rhythm on the jukebox behind him. They see his long-sleeved arm waving to them above the crowd. He's wearing a shirt, proclaiming an obvious love for Monty Python, and Bobby already feels a kinship with him, remembering his youth.

"You're getting shaggy," Eames says as she runs her right hand through her brother's curls.

Sean swats her hand away playfully. "Keeps me warm."

Then, "Bobby, good to see you. You're everything I pictured, minus the eye in the back of your head."

Bobby shakes Sean's hand and inclines his head slightly leftward in confusion.

"You see everything," Sean supplies, with a smirk, his pointer finger tapping his right temple. "Anyway, are you going to stay?"

"Not tonight. We've got a high priority case."

Bobby shuffles his feet on the hardwood floor, restless.

"Do you know anything about C.E.E.?" she asks.

The corner of Sean's mouth lifts up, sardonically. "I'm being used. And yes, I do. Interesting anagram."

"Inventive," Bobby offers, in agreement, thinking there must be an intentionally symbolic meaning to that moniker. _See_.

"Most of the people are fairly reclusive, but harmless. There are some people there that--well, they're mentally unhinged, sort of dangerously paranoid, and they just get agitated when they go there. But the clientele, they have to pay for the services, it's not like a support group. They've got professional therapists there, they charge for it. Why do you want to know?"

"The high priority case."

"Ah."

"Yeah," she says, stirring the thin red straw through amber rivers reflecting dimly lit bar lights.

"Bobby, I hear you're a genius, or something. You should come play for my team soon, we could use a show-off."

Eames opens her mouth to speak.

"Not a word," forestalls her brother, open palm jokingly threatening before her face.

"I-I'd like that. After this case..."

"Sure, I'll give you a call."

Eames finishes her amaretto and Bobby pulls his coat closer to his body.

"If you need anything else, Lexi..." her brother begins.

She nods and smiles, ruffling his hair once more and laying a few bills on the table.

"Live long and prosper," Sean calls out, as Goren and Eames leave with a laugh.

* * *

"Have you talked to the neighbor yet?" Deakins questions the next morning. 

"We think he might be a suspect," Bobby supplies, without looking up from his binder.

"On what basis?"

"Some circumstantial evidence, at first, but Detective Fischer's partner told us that apparently Patrick McGann attends C.E.E. on a regular basis."

"C.E.E.?" Deakins questions.

"'Center for Extraterrestrial Encounters. They're a--an organization for people coping with...unique experiences."

"This is a riot," he notes, pointedly.

Eames scribbles a note on a pad. "If we confront the neighbor, directly, he'll just close off."

"We might close this quicker if we--if we can gain his trust."

"Undercover," Deakins finishes.

Goren and Eames nod, awaiting approval.

"Like the Detective whose murder you're investigating."

"A calculated risk."

"Are we assuming this...McGann guy found out who she really was?"

"We don't know how he behaves; if he's deeply paranoid, the knowledge of--of her true identity could've set him off."

"We're ruling out the possibility that any money is being collected, by this organization, under false pretenses?" Deakins questions, rocking once on the balls of his feet.

"Well, that's what Detectives Fischer and Elyer were investigating; it seems to be a legitimate organization, albeit--"

"Cooky," Deakins supplies, amusedly.

"That's one word for it," Eames fires back.

"This is going to be a quick undercover," Deakins orders, a slight air of authority creeping into his voice.

"We're just in town visiting."

* * *

For all her preparation (well, she was slightly more versed in this than Bobby, anyway), she is actually surprised when greeted by drab grey walls and a poster of the Northern Lights covering the entire span of wall from halfway between the ceiling and floor, right below the clock. She was expecting surveillance pictures of UFOs and rudimentary drawings of aliens. 

She turns the prior thought over in her head again; she is more familiar with these stories, these people, than Bobby. It's a liberating feeling, for once, and not at all in a competitive way; rather, a _yes, I am needed way_.

She plays the part; her sunglasses stay over her eyes for now and she keeps her arm looped through Bobby's as he introduces them to the...president?

"I'm Marty Caster, this is my wife, Liz."

_Oh, those names_, she winces, smiling widely above the surface.

"Don Redwell. I run C.E.E. and I'd be happy to assist you in any way possible."

"Mr. Redwell--"

"Don, please, we're a family here."

Bobby shares an invisible look with Eames as he continues, "We just wanted to stop in today. We're driving back up to Maine soon, but my wife's been having her nightmares again and I thought I should bring her here, you know, speak to other people. We've heard so many good things about this organization."

Redwell smiles arrogantly. "Well, we're having our monthly group potluck in about half an hour. You're welcome to stay, get a feel for the place, and then mingle. If necessary, we have some licensed therapists available for consultation. At a minor fee, of course."

"Of course."

"Well, the food will be served in the alcove to your left. Just ask anyone if you have questions. But right now, I must attend to some other obligations."

With that, Redwell is gone.

"Nightmares," Eames whispers, though Redwell is far out of earshot now.

"This isn't my area, Eames."

"Your _area_? Bobby, you're osmosis personified, _everything_ is your area," she says, but with a hint of a tease in her voice, knowing he is, in fact, a bit of a virgin regarding this subject.

"Impress me," he teases back, slightly surprising her.

Noticing her arm still grips his, she casually loosens her hold and wanders towards the poster of the Northern Lights. She studies it for a second, eyes focusing on the darkest shade of blue ascending upwards in a narrowing bend of light.

"He doesn't actually think he saw an alien, anymore, but I think...he started believing in the possibility of their existence that night."

She cups her right elbow with her left hand and touches the glass with the tip of her pointer finger, continuing in a hushed whisper.

"You can see anything in those lights." _If you know how to look_, she thinks as a silent aside.

He opens his mouth to offer something, but it occurs to him immediately that she's sharing an indirectly emotional piece of herself with him and he's not certain anything but silence would be a satisfactory reply. But he smiles, and--

"I have trouble seeing at night," he shares back.

And then there really is silence: the most fitting solidification of kinship between a wayward wallflower and an eager firefly.


	3. Chapter 3

**NOTE: **Thanks for all the feedback so far. Sorry for the wait. The next part is nearly complete, so there should be a faster succession of chapters from now on.

* * *

**iv. Images of Broken Light Which Dance Before Me Like A Million Eyes**

Eames has never really liked the taste of grape juice--all bitter and timeless, the way it lingers on your tongue with its last sour spite tendrils--but she thinks Liz Caster, her current alter ego, would, so she swallows it with a convincing smile and wonders if the maroon liquid will leave a stain around her lips. And then she thinks of milk moustaches, and childhood whispers between games of hide and seek, and one hand falls away from her cup as--

"Liz, is it?" interrupts her.

She wants to give a smart-ass retort, because she's wearing an obvious form of identification: one of those silly 'Hello, My Name Is' badges, but...Liz Caster probably wouldn't react that way. So, again, she is at the mercy of her dutiful lies.

"Liz, yes. Hello," she tries deciphering the handwriting, "Ellen."

They shake hands and Eames tosses her near empty cup of grape juice in the trashcan.

"Were you--are you--did you have an experience, or was it--"

Ellen's clear hesitation makes Eames step in as soon as a pause allows.

"It's my demon. My husband's just here, being supportive," she says, waving a hand to Bobby, who smiles as he adjusts his burnt sienna jacket.

"Demon. That's a nice way to describe it. It is rather evil and...unwanted...like that. I mean--were you abducted?"

The only story she can immediately think to recite is the story her brother has annoying told, in his unwavering endearance, for years and years, since the camping trip.

"No, no, nothing like that. It was years ago, on a camping trip. I saw something, you know, it was--sometimes I dream about it so much, I can't remember if I'm actually seeing the it in my dream, or a corruption of it. Maybe a little of both. I know I didn't speak to anyone for a week after it happened, it terrified me. I remember...lots of lights, and a ramp, and...I still have nightmares. I haven't had them for a while, now, but they've started up again."

Ellen nods and pats Eames' hand with her own, only the tips of her fingers visible from beneath the overgrown blue sweater.

"I'm so glad this organization was here, Lord knows what my husband would've had to deal with all the way up to Maine, without it," she smiles as she finishes, hoping it was convincing enough. As Ellen wraps an arm around her shoulder and starts to walk her to a separate room, she's more convinced of her ability to lie well, but suddenly wary about their destination.

"Where are we going?" she implores, suspiciously.

"We've got a therapist here I think you could benefit from a visit with."

Eames puts her hand on Ellen's elbow gently, halting movement. They are standing in the lobby, and Eames catches sight of a man with shoulder-length curly, blond hair staring at the same poster which had previously transfixed her.

"Who's that?" she asks of Ellen, quietly, suddenly distracted from the previous interruption.

Ellen turns to look at the man, a small, sympathetic smile overtaking her face.

"Patrick McGann. He comes here a lot, he's a sweet man, but he's...deeply paranoid. Government conspiracies and all that. He doesn't trust people in authority, really, although he's warmed up to Don."

"Ellen, I think I'll speak to that therapist later, if you don't mind?" Eames pats Ellen's hand quickly and smiles, walking towards Patrick. Ellen shrugs and returns to the reception.

Her footsteps slow as she nears him, suddenly uncertain without Bobby, who's always been the one facilitating these intimate encounters with suspects. Tucking her hands into her pockets, she keeps her head lowered, tilted slightly to the side, and comes to stand in front of the poster, staring at it as she speaks.

"I saw these lights, once."

He scratches his head, but doesn't look at her.

"I saw them the night...the night I started believing in the stories people laugh at you for."

She thinks that confession will do it, but he remains silent, so she tries another approach.

"The night I started believing in monsters."

He looks at her now, staring at her forehead, and then back at the poster, tracing a finger on the narrowest portion of light.

"They aren't monsters. Monsters don't come from other planets. They live here," his whispering voice descends with the hand now motioning towards the barren ground of earth depicted in the poster.

"I guess you're right," she says, looking down at her feet again, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

"Do people laugh at you?" he asks in a sad way, staring at her again.

"Sometimes."

"They laugh at me, too. They all do--well, except for Angie," he tucks his hands into his pockets now, looking at nothing but the grey tangled fibers of the carpet below them.

A flash sounds at the back of her brain when Detective Fischer is mentioned. He stands before her, curls teasing an irritant tear from the corner of his eye, his left shoe taps non-rhythms into the crack between the wall and floor, and she wonders about monsters who exist within the dirtied coats of blue-eyed wanderers.

"Angie?" she probes cautiously. And another thought gives her pause; if he's referring to Detective Fischer by her first name, he must've known about her true identity, which means he must've been aware of the undercover operation.

He crosses his arms now.

"She was my friend. She was--"

He looks at her again, really looking at her now, not just outlines of her.

"Like you," he finishes.

Eames pretends to be surprised, though the recollection of seeing the detective in the morgue, who startingly resembled her, still gives her pause.

Patrick looks at his watch now, biting his lip in irritation.

"He's supposed to see me. He's lying to me. Just like she did. Angie. Angie lied."

"Patrick--"

She moves closer, minutely, aware that his trust in people seems a thing of near non-existence. His reaction to Detective Fischer spurs her into a greater desire for getting closer to the breakdown of his mind, to understand his anger, to know if he's vindictive. To know if he's capable of murder.

He looks at her in a briefly lucid way, but quickly steps back, looking suddenly upset at what he's just said.

"He needs to see me tomorrow. He has to, he has to," he runs a shaky hand through his hair and turns his back to her. She can see his shoulders trembling.

"What did Angie lie to you about?" she asks in an attempt to extract an explanation from him, seeking a brief bit of rationality in his otherwise disjointed phrasings.

Patrick's shoulders steady slightly and he drops his arms to the side.

"She was worried about me. We talked a lot and I--my experiences are pretty frightening. She didn't think I was getting the help I needed. I thought she loved me, for a little while..."

Eames crosses her arms, moving closer to him, though his face is still hidden from hers. He hasn't yet mentioned Angie's identity as a cop, so a confusion continues to fester within.

"I thought she did."

He turns around now, his once-again-crossed arms mirroring her stance.

"I don't want to go in there. I shouldn't have come back today," he looks towards the other room where members circulate with bitter juice folded between their hands, and make their traumas more sensational as they go along, looking...always looking, for a face that won't turn away from the nightmares they live.

Eames catches Bobby's eye and inclines her head sharply to the left, indicating he should join her.

"Patrick, do you want to get lunch somewhere?"

Patrick drops his hands to the side again, stuffing them into his pockets shyly just as Bobby comes to stand beside Eames, an arm going instinctively around her shoulder.

"My husband's buying," she winks.

* * *

"No, no, people who aren't wanted by society--they escape _to_ Desolation Row," Bobby interjects over hot pastrami. 

"They were banished," Patrick contests.

Eames takes a bite of her tuna sandwich and smiles as she says, "Maybe they just took a wrong turn."

Bobby would never do so, but he plays his alter go to the hilt, and elbows her gently. The left corner of Patrick's mouth lifts in a smirk.

"When are you leaving the city?"

"Soon," Bobby wipes his mouth. "As soon as Liz is ready, that is. We drive through the night and it's--it tends to be a trigger for flashbacks. I want her to feel comfortable."

She studies Patrick's face as he listens to Bobby. His eyes flicker in and out, at one point interested, at the next, indifferent to what's being said.

"I have a book that might help. Self-hypnosis. We could go back to my place when we're done."

* * *

When she was dating Josh, they would play a game where they'd label each other's scars. Being the man he touted himself as, it took a bit longer to finish with him. Sometimes, they knew exactly where each other's scars had come from, and properly named them; other times, they made up stories about their origins, even if they knew the truth. She remembers finding the chickenpox scar on the upper slope of his cheek and calling it 'sun tattoo, for the time you forgot to come inside' and he laughed at her and said it was too deep, so she had to think of something else. Her hand went to the inch-long scar on his elbow and this was 'who you were before' and he accepted it. That day, she took the cigarette from his mouth, haughty in her presumption, and burned a new scar onto her wrist saying, simply, "Here be monsters," and he didn't know how to respond and they never played again. 

Her thoughts wander to Josh because of the albums Patrick McGann keeps in sloppy order on his archaic bookshelf. He doesn't just listen to folk music, but old jazz and hard rock and everything that contradicts. When she thinks about Josh, she sometimes remembers that they contradicted, too. But it didn't matter then, because they were young.

Her eyes catch on a Bob Dylan album and she thinks of Angie, and Patrick, and her suspicion grows. He keeps the shades drawn, so the only light within the apartment is the end rays of the setting sun. Next to _The Communist Manifesto_, another token further indicts Patrick: the casing for a stilleto knife. As she takes in the revelation, she can't help but think there's more to it. Yet for now, the evidence suggests otherwise.

"She was a cop, you know. Damn good. Kept me safe, anyway," Patrick's voice suddenly filters from his tiny bedroom, where he stands on the edge of his floor-bound mattress with his shoes on.

Bobby--from his place at the bookshelf on the opposite wall--looks towards Eames, raising an eyebrow.

"A cop? I thought people like that--they don't believe in supernatural things," Bobby murmurs, turning over a book to read the description on the back.

Patrick comes into the living room now, pulling at the torn corner of the plaid shirt he's changed into.

"They usually don't. But she was--well, I guess it doesn't matter now, because she's--"

"What?"

"Dead. She--she was murdered. Oh, Christ," his face collapses into itself, his eyes pinching shut and his mouth moving sideways in an attempt to swallow grief.

"I'm sorry. She--she had been undercover. I was helping her, because I go there all the time. They were investigating...it doesn't matter. Anyway, she's dead."

He wipes at his eyes quickly, angrily.

"She was my friend," no more than a whisper.

Suddenly, Eames' cell phone rings. She moves into a corner, eyes widening slightly at the news being received. She flips the phone shut, sliding it back into her pocket, slowly, slowly.

"Patrick, we need to bring you in for questioning."

His eyes widen and he scrutinizes the two of them, a sigh overtaking his slumping shoulders. Too many cops, he thinks; not enough friends.

TBC...


End file.
